Trail Cam Info Needed

[LoknLoadXD9]

Based on your experience, what features are "must have" for a camera and what are "nice to have if you have the money?"

I moved to a new area a year and half ago and have been hiking with my pup in unposted land. I've seen many deer and have a good idea of their routes and plan to set up a ladder stand this fall.

When is a good time to start recording them? Now, July, August? I understand that I want to pick a spot for the stand and get it set up with plenty of time for the deer to get used to it. So what schedule do you suggest? I live in central NY about 10 miles south of the Adirondack Park.

This will be my 5th year hunting and still consider my skills at novice levels. I look forward to your feedback.

[BradXDM45c]

Not sure on any of the newer ones, I have one that's about 2 years old. infrared flash, pics every 30 seconds with movement. Takes nice pics. Be prepared for LOTS of pics of birds, and racoons if you plan on putting out anything (corn, block ect)

A nice enclosure works well to keep bigger 4 legged animals out, we've had a bear knock ours down before. Goes in a steel box now with small cutouts.

[.hero.]

I run Moultrie and Bushnell(the cheap gray ones from Sams Club).
I tend to prefer the infrared over the flash. Seem to get better pictures at night. But that could be due to the camera also.

Mine are already out. I start scouting pretty hard the 3rd week of July.

I want to be able to set the time between pics(I prefer 1 min), flash, clear pictures.
Not sure what other features. I tend to buy the ones about 100.00. Just in case they end up walking away.

[LoknLoadXD9]

Bought a Moultrie GameSpy model through Sportsman Guide with a 2gig SD card for under $100. It's a 4megapixel IR cam that includes moonphase and temperature tagging on pics. It is kinda of a shiny black plastic so I wrapped it with Realtree style vinyl (I have a vinyl printer). Gonna try to get it out this week it time and weather permits.

[rayikeo2]

Battery life. Find one that has the longest battery life with the cheapest type battery. The older models only last about 1 month. Newer ones can get up to a year from the battery. Mine uses 6 c cells, they are expensive to replace with duracells.

[LoknLoadXD9]

Caught this critter about 4 hours after hanging the camera up yesterday! Pretty stoked about this, but this was only about an 1/8 mile from my house, so he's probably ventured in my back yard.

[USAF452]

You definitely want:

Infrared (for nighttime photos)
Ability to take a series of photos at once (sometimes the animal may not be in the right position in the first photo)
A large SD card, minimum 4GB (allows you to stay away from camera longer, thus not leaving human scent)
Long battery life (I change the batteries every 2 months whether they need it or not)

I have a Moultrie Game Spy IR 5.0MegaPixel. I got it at Wal-Mart on sale for $79. I first started using it during the season on a tree near my treestand because I hadn't been seeing anything while hunting. I left it up all season and when the season was over, I moved its location to a spot that was more conducive to turkey hunting. I set out some corn and birdseed after the deer season was over to see what had survived the hunt and I got TONS of photos. In two seperate photos, I got 9 does (3 obviously pregnant) and another shot got 17 hens with 2 jakes trailing them.

I've got mine set up to take 3 pics when movement is detected, and I put an 8GB card in mine. So far I have almost 3000 pics. Once I tweaked the settings to their current settings, I started to get REAL results. Don't be afraid you will be taking too many pics, that's when you get the good ones.

The best photos I have are of a doe/raccoon stand-off, a nice 8-pointer that still had his antlers in late March, a hen stretching her neck to check out the camera, a doe/fawn from a few weeks ago, and some promising bucks that are frequenting my mineral lick rock.

I keep mine up all year. You will get more pics that way and you will see things you didn't even know were there.

[Rmart30]

Moultrie M80 .....either with the standard IR or the blackout flash model........ bout $45 more for black flash model but it is so much easier to hide from 2 legged critters......
They are small and take some great pictures. 8 AA batteries and I can get well over 6000 pics in the warmer months. Battery life is about 2.5 months in the colder weather and about 5000 pics.

[Eglock86]

Originally Posted by Rmart30

Moultrie M80 .....either with the standard IR or the blackout flash model........ bout $45 more for black flash model but it is so much easier to hide from 2 legged critters......
They are small and take some great pictures. 8 AA batteries and I can get well over 6000 pics in the warmer months. Battery life is about 2.5 months in the colder weather and about 5000 pics.

This